What is the
connection between beforeness and the like and pastness and the like?
Are
the temporal relations of beforeness and so on the real facts about
time?
This is still the main philosophical problem about the nature of time
--
at any rate outside of the arcane sub-department of philosophy that is
the
Philosophy of Science. Are the somehow obscure matters of pastness and
the
like somehow reducible to the plain facts of beforeness and the like?
Many
empirically-minded philosophers have thought so, but it can seem, as
the
paper below argues, that there is a certain disproof of the project.

Let us have in mind three visits to
the earth of a recurrent comet, say Halley’s, and one other event,
the falling of a leaf. In speaking of a visit of the comet, we
understand
what we need not define closely, a movement of the comet in which it is
near
to the earth. We have, let it be supposed, some way of distinguishing
each
of the three visits which does not have to do with its time, and hence
not with its relations in time to the other two visits. Let us suppose
that we
identify it by perhaps its particular visibility from England - perhaps
the
particular degree to which it was obscured by clouds. Thereafter we
refer
to one visit so identified as the first mentioned visit or,
with exactly
the same meaning, the first visit, and refer to the other two
in the
related ways.

We have certain beliefs about the four events.
The first-mentioned visit of the comet, we believe, is before
the second, the second is simultaneous with the falling of the
leaf,
and the third is after the second. Each of the events, then,
has what
may be called a temporal relation to another event. This is to say,
only,
that it is before, simultaneous with or after another event.[1] Taking
into
account only the four events and no others, each has but three temporal
relations,
one with each of the other events.

It would be more natural to make use
of ordinary tensed verbs and thus to say, for example, that the
first-mentioned visit was before the second, or is
happening before it, or
will be happening before it. However, what is in question here is
a relation
which seems to be independent of tenses of past, present and future.
Despite
the fact that the relation can be asserted in tensed sentences, and
ordinarily
is, they also carry further meaning. Hence, it will be best to stick to
a
tenseless usage.

There is also something else which
we believe of our four events, something which does have entirely to do
with
tenses. Each event has happened, is happening, or will
happen. Each one is past, present or future. Each, then,
has what
may be called a temporal property. This is only to say, in one way or
another,
that it is past, present or future.

Temporal relations are unchanging.
Given that the first-mentioned visit of the comet is before the second,
then it always stands in just that relation of precedence to the
second. An event’s
temporal properties are otherwise in that they do change. The falling
of
the leaf, if we suppose that it is happening now, was once going to
happen
and soon will have happened. The event was future but ceased to be. Is
present,
and will be past.

Here and hereafter, it will be important to
keep in mind that when temporal properties or temporal relations are
mentioned,
terms of convenience are being employed. They are merely invented
abbreviations
for more ordinary usage. To say an event has a temporal property is
merely
to say it is past, present or future. Similarly, to say that temporal
properties
of events change means only whatever we ordinarily mean when we say, in
one
of several possible ways, that events are in turn future, present and
past.
It is not being suggested that events possess properties in one of the
several
different manners in which items of one kind and another possess
properties.
It is not being suggested that temporal properties are like, for
example,
colour or location. So with the term ‘temporal relations’. It
is just an abbreviation of ordinary talk.

The fact that events have both temporal
relations and also temporal properties enters into one of the
fundamental disputes about time in Western philosophy. Given the nature
of this book, my primary intention is to report on this controversy. My
exposition of the
competing doctrines, for several reasons, will be cursory and
partial.[2]To advance the dispute, rather than report on
it, would require a kind
of close argument which here is out of place. My lesser purpose is to
offer
some informal argument.[3]

The problem which we shall consider
involves what is meant by saying that an event is earlier than another,
or
stands in some other temporal relation, and what is meant by saying
that
an event is past, or has some other temporal property. The questions
are
compelling in themselves. Moreover, the answers to them are highly
relevant
to other mysteries about time.

A cautious analysis of temporal
relations

With respect to the two temporal relations of
antecedence and subsequence. as distinct from the relation of
simultaneity, a part of our understanding is beyond doubt: (a) if the
first-mentioned visit
of the comet was before the second, then the second was not before the
first;
(b) if the first was before the second and the second before the third,
then
the first was before the third; (c) finally, it would be absurd to say
that
the first visit was before the first visit. There are three related
truths
about our understanding of the statement that one event was after
rather
than before another.

The two relations in question, then,
are understood by us to have certain formal properties: those of
asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity. In these three properties
they are unlike certain other relations. The relation of equality, for
example, is symmetrical and reflexive, and the relation of fatherhood
is intransitive.

Our understanding of the temporal relations of
antecedence and subsequence, however, certainly has more in it than
that.
This follows from the fact alone that other relations, having nothing
to
do with time, do have the same formal properties. We may say of items
in
space, perhaps the furniture in a drawing-room, that from a certain
point
of view one piece is to the left of another. Here too we have a
relation which
is asymmetrical, transitive and irreflexive.

Given the gravity with which some philosophers
produce these formal properties, it needs making plain how very little
we know about temporal relations in knowing that they have the
properties. Take asymmetry. What we know about the statement that the
falling of the leaf
is before the third visit of the comet, given a grasp only of the
asymmetry,
is only that the falling is so related to the visit that the visit
cannot
be related in that way, whatever it may be, to the falling. We know
virtually
nothing of the nature of the relation. All we know is explicitly
given in the statement that since the visit stands in
relation R to the falling, the falling does not stand in
relation
R to the visit. We do not know how to understand R. Given
that
we have a grasp only of asymmetry, indeed, we cannot even distinguish
antecedence
from subsequence. We do not understand the difference between saying
that
the falling is before the visit rather than after it.

A second part of our understanding
of the two temporal relations, it may be said, is simply that in
talking
of items being before or after one another, we are talking of relations
which
are taken to connect items of a certain kind: events. These relations
are
not understood to connect such items as locations or numbers. How far
does this take us? We may understand an event to consist, in part, in a
thing’s having a certain feature. Do we, in seeing that the relation of
antecedence has events as its terms, see more about the relation? The
answer to that question,
despite the fact that a full definition of an event may include a
reference
to time, seems to be yes. We could not be allowed to understand the
relation
of fatherhood at all, for example, if we did not understand that its
terms
could not be locations. Exactly what it is that we understand, however,
when
we see that temporal relations hold between events, is unclear.

Thirdly, talk of temporal relations
may be said to have to do with change. That is, to know that our four
events stand in their various temporal relations is to know of
different states of
the world. One state includes the first visit but none of the other
three
events. Another includes the second visit and the leaf’s falling, but
not the first or the third visit. Another state includes the third
visit,
but none of the other three events.

To say the first visit is before the
second, then, is to talk of two different states of the world and hence
of
what can be called change.

This is likely to seem to contribute
more to the understanding of temporal relations. However, to mention
but
one point of relevance, it is essential that the particular notion of
change be made clear. What we are understanding by 'change’ is no more
than
a matter of different states. In the sense in which change is involved
in temporal relations, according to the suggestion, there is precisely
the same
kind of change in the fixed line of hills we see on the horizon. In one
part
the line is smooth and in another it is broken. The line has
‘successive’ segments or 'states’. We are not entertaining the idea of
change which seems to have to do, as we may obscurely say, with a
thing’s coming
into existence.

Is there a fourth distinct thing involved in
talk of the two temporal relations? Is there something over and above
their
formal properties, the fact that they hold between events, and the fact
that
they involve a kind of change? It seems that there must be, principally
for
the reason that we still seem to have no distinction between
antecedence arid
subsequence. What has been suggested is that these relations, and
hence,
a series of events defined in terms of these relations have a direction.
Our own series, it may be said, has direction from the
first-mentioned visit of the comet to the third. Here we come upon one
of many terms of a
metaphorical kind, which are to some philosophers the very guide to
reflection about time. To other philosophers they are its very curse.

Those who speak of the direction of
the temporal relations, and of the resulting series of events, are
presumably not concerned with the fact that we commonly think of
precedent events before
we think of subsequent ones. We can in our thinking go the other way,
and
we often do. Rather, they are concerned to assert that the relations
and
the series themselves have a direction. In this, such
relations and
series are unlike the spatial relation of one thing’s being to the left
of another, or of a series of positions in space defined on the basis
of
that relation.

Can it be that this intuition of direction,
despite its evocative nature, actually has to do only with something
relatively unmysterious? Some physical processes, notably increase in
entropy, are regarded
as irreversible. That is, they are processes such that an initial state
of
a given kind is not followed by another state of the same kind. Hence,
if
one passes in thought one way along a series of events, one comes upon
certain
sequences or orderings of events which do not occur if one passes along
the
series the other way. What we have here, it appears, is a further
characterization
of temporal relations got from a feature of the series of terms defined
by
these relations. Much must go unsaid, but it may seem that this
irreversibility
will do the job of distinguishing antecedence and subsequence in the
way
we do.

Can it be that a search for a grander
thing, in so far as the direction of temporal relations is concerned,
is
no more than the result of allowing one’s mind to wander from the
business
at hand? Certainly, there seems to be a pretty impressive 'direction’
in events when they are considered as future, present and past. The
same
is true when we simply think of events, in an ordinary and unanalytical
way,
as in time. However, we are not now concerned either with the temporal
properties of events or with general talk that has to do with time. We
are concerned only with events taken as before or after one another.

I have, as some will be aware, been
guided in most of these remarks by an awareness of one tradition of
philosophical thought about temporal relations. For want of a better
name, and for reasons to which we shall come, it may be called the
tradition of caution. We shall return to the question of temporal
relations and to another tradition of thought
about them. For the moment, we have the hypothesis that our statements
about
the precedence and subsequence of items have as their content (a) an
awareness
that the terms of the relations are events, (b) certain beliefs about
formal
properties, (c) a belief having to do with what is called change, and
(d)
some belief or other about direction.

This sketch of one possible analysis
of statements about temporal relations is lamentably unfinished. It
raises many questions which must go unanswered. However, it is worth
noticing that
it has a further feature so far unmentioned. What I have in mind is (e)
that
this analysis of statements about temporal relations does not
have
recourse to temporal properties. It does not attempt to
explain the
belief that one visit of the comet is before or after another by
bringing
in familiar notions of past. present or future. The same is true,
incidentally,
of a closely related analysis of the temporal relation of simultaneity,
which
we have left untouched in all of this.

A cautious analysis of temporal
properties

Let us turn now to our beliefs about
the temporal properties of our four events. Let us, for the purpose of
reflection, suppose that the second visit of the comet is now
happening, the first is
past, and the third is to come. If we believe these things, what is it
that
we believe? If we are guided by the philosophical tradition of caution
already
mentioned, we shall answer that the meaning of such statements about
temporal properties has to do with temporal relations conceived
in the way that we have just conceived them.

The answer, in one clear version, can
be given very quickly. It is that my statement, which we may call S1
, that the second-mentioned visit is now happening. amounts to this:
the second-mentioned
visit is simultaneous with my utterance of the statement S1.
We
shall say that the statement, S2, that the first visit is
now
past, amounts to this: the first visit is before my utterance of the
statement
S2. As for the statement S3, that the third visit
is
to come, or is in the future, it amounts to a claim about the third
visit’s
being after my utterance of S3. All this, at least after a
moment’s
reflection, may seem natural and persuasive.

If we bring together the analyses of
temporal relations and temporal properties, we have a view of our talk
of
time. Let us notice two principal features of the view. Past, present
and
future are reduced to the relations of precedence, simultaneity and
subsequence. We have, in all of our talk about time, no more than ideas
of the kind supplied
with respect to temporal relations. All of our talk about time,
including
talk of temporal properties, is reduced to the particular ideas which
we
supposed ourselves to have in speaking of events as before other
events,
simultaneous with them, or after them. The relations which we are said
to
have in mind in speaking of past, present and future are different from
others
of their kind only in one way: they have as one term a linguistic
event,
and thus an event dependent upon the existence of consciousness.

There is then a second principal feature of
the view which we are entertaining. Given the particular understanding
of temporal properties, there would be no such properties in a world
without consciousness. The point is not, of course, that the properties
would exist, but that there would be no awareness of them or beliefs
about them. There would in fact be no such properties, since the
existence of such properties depends on the existence of consciousness.

More explicitly, the view we are entertaining
has the consequence that to say an event is now happening is to assert
or
presuppose the existence of consciousness. Given that view, what we
believe
in believing that the second-mentioned visit of the comet is happening
now,
would not be true if no one were here to make statement S1
or
some version of it. If the world were without conscious inhabitants,
the
second-mentioned visit of the comet would indeed be after the first,
simultaneous
with the falling of the leaf, and before the third visit. If what we
mean
by know’ and our tensed utterances is what we are supposing we mean,
it would not be true that the second visit was happening now, or, as we
ordinarily
say. happening. It would not be true that the first-mentioned
visit
had happened or was past, or that the third visit was to happen or was
in
the future.

There is no doubt that when this second
feature of the analysis before us is made clear, some people will be
quick to conclude that the analysis is unutterably mistaken. They may
also conclude that arguments against it can easily be discovered. There
is something to
be said for restraint, however. Let us turn to the alternative
tradition, and first to some reflection on temporal properties rather
than relations.

An affirmative analysis of the temporal
property of presentness

When we depart from our ordinary thoughts and
utterances, in which items are taken to be past, present or future, and
direct our attention to the substantive term, ‘the present’,
we come upon a host of quite familiar usages. It is natural to say, for
example, that the present passes, or passes away. We may indeed become
enthusiastic and declare, with one philosopher, that the present has
'the jerky or whooshy quality of transience’. Such utterances and
declamations, no doubt,
are distantly related to some truth. They may also seduce one into
confusion.

Some philosophers, it appears, have
been led by them to conceive of the present as a thing, and
indeed
a thing distantly related to the rolling stock of British Rail. The
principal difficulty with such ideas, however expressed, is that all
movement in the
end consists in, or at least requires, a thing’s being in different
places at different times. If ‘the present’ is a kind of moving
thing, in what time does it do so? We started with the present, or, as
we
can say, present time, and we must now have another time in which it
makes its progress. Does that further time also have a moving present?

Let us leave all that without further
ado. Let us not forget, however, our familiar usages about 'the
present’.
We are not so well supplied with kinds of data about time that we can
ignore any we have. Let us keep the familiarities at hand, forget about
time as a
moving thing, and return to the statement that the second visit of the
comet
is now occurring. What does it mean?

Perhaps the truism that the second
visit is neither future nor past suggests a line of reflection. It
makes
some sense or other to say that the future does not yet exist, and the
past no longer exists. Can we then attach sense to the statements that
future events
do not yet exist and that past events no longer exist? If so, we may
move
to the obscure speculation that to say that the second visit of the
comet
is now occurring is to say that it now exists.

Whatever else we have, we now appear
to be in line with our familiar usages. We need not take the step of
ignoring our notion that the present passes. We can attempt to
understand it as having
to do with such matters as a thing’s coming into existence, being in
it, and going out of it.

Still, we are in difficulty. If we
consider one of the things just said, that past events are events which
no
longer exist, one of our embarrassments may be that it seems to amount
to
this: past events do not exist now. We shall not have made
much progress if we explain our use of ‘past’ by introducing, in the
explanation,
a use of ‘now’. We wish, somehow, to give an explanation of all
the terms by which we ascribe temporal properties. We do not wish
merely
to make connexions between the terms, to ‘define’ one by means
of the other, but rather to get outside the ring of terms. Similarly,
we
have just supposed that to say the second-mentioned visit of the comet
is
occurring now is to say that it, the visit, now exists. How much good
is
that? The difficulty is plain circularity. ‘Now’ turns up once
too often.

Also, and differently, there must be
some doubt that we have made a clear advance by moving from talk of the
visit’s happening to talk of the visit’s existing. We
need
not be too perturbed by the response of the plain man, or the plain
philosopher, that it is things which exist, rather than events. We can
admit that the usage
is unusual, and attempt to justify it. Let us look at this difficulty
first
and then return to the matter of circularity.

How does it come about, as it does,
that philosophers are led to assertions about time like the one we are
considering? The explanation often has a great deal to do with the
cautious analysis of
temporal properties at which we have looked already. That analysis
issues in a particular understanding of the statement that the second
visit of the
comet is now happening. The happening of the visit is made into a
matter of
a simultaneity relation. This, it is felt, is wonderfully inadequate.
It is true that when we say truly that the second visit is now
happening, our utterance is simultaneous with the visit. Surely,
however,
that is not what we are saying, or all of it. Something other than that
is
being said.

In order to attempt to express what
seems to be meant by the statement that the visit is happening now, the
philosophers in question have recourse, as we have had, to the
declaration that it now exists. We need not look at several variations
on this theme.

The trouble is that in so far as analysis is
concerned, we get very little from this talk of existence. Until more
is
said, the clear content that it has seems to amount to two
implications. It
is implied that to say the second visit is happening now is not to say
something,
or not only to say something, about a simultaneity relation. It is
implied
that the present happening of events would continue if we were not here
to
be aware of events.

What are we to understand that
the statement about the second visit states? The only answer I
can
see, one to which we might as well come sooner rather than later, is
that
in saying of the second visit that it is now happening, we are saying
something of the visit which we all understand but which is not open to
further analysis. We here have an unanalysable or primitive notion,
expressed by such descriptions of something as ‘happening now’.

If we take up this view, we shall certainly
have to put up with the standard retort made to anyone who asserts
about a
controversial notion that it is unanalysable or primitive. The retort
is
that saying the notion is primitive is no more than an admission of
failure
in the task of analysis. It is to be replied, perhaps,that
sonic
such ‘failures’ consist in the perception of truth. The existence of
certain primitive notions in our conceptual scheme is undeniable and
perhaps
has never been denied. Is there adequate reason for denying that we
have
another one here? Certainly time is in some sense basic to our
perception
and reflection. What more likely place to find an unanalysable concept?

What we have, then, is the hypothesis
that to say the second visit is happening now, or simply happening, is
to
say something about the visit which is understood by all and which is
in
a certain sense simple or fundamental and thus not open to reduction.
And, since we have not got an analysis of statements about present
events, we have
not got a circular analysis of them. That objection is no
longer a
possibility. The circularity that was apparent in our attempted
analysis, however, is not without importance. It, like the many
circularities which emerge in discussion of time, is an indication that
we are dealing with a primitive concept. As for circularity
that may arise in analyses of
statements about past and future, we shall return to the matter.

One of two questions that remain about our
hypothesis as to statements about present events has to do with the
formulation
of the hypothesis. Shall we persist in saying that the hypothesis is
that
such assertions as the one about the second visit ascribe existence to
events?
Perhaps there is no harm in this so long as we know what we are up to.
The
hypothesis, if we choose to assert the implications mentioned
above,
consists in three propositions: (a) statements about temporal
properties
do not have to do with, or only to do with, simultaneity relations; (b)
such
statements would be true if there were no consciousness; (c) such
statements
rest on a primitive notion of existence.

The other question is this one: are
we in fact engaged in an absurd enterprise of inventing a notion that
is
simply redundant? ‘We all agree’, someone may say, ‘that
the second visit of the comet is now happening. That is, the comet is
near the earth. The comet has that feature. Can we really suppose
sensibly
that on top of that, something else is importantly true, something
which
you refer to by saying that the visit has "existence"?’ The proper
answer must be that we are not adding anything. What we are
doing
is supposing that to say the second visit is now happening, or that it
is
happening, or that the comet is (now) near the earth, or that the comet
(now)
has a feature, is to make use of a notion for which there is
no analysis.

We have another account, then, of one
class of statements about temporal properties, those that have to do
with
present events, It is an account in accordance with the second
tradition
of philosophical thought about time. The first tradition, that of
caution,
has the distinction among others of being informed by a reluctance to
take
up anything about which clear things cannot be said. The second
tradition
expresses, among other things, an attitude of affirmation. We may call
it
the tradition of affirmation. What is affirmed is principally one
conviction
about the present, and it is affirmed in spite of the fact that nothing
of
an analytical kind can be said about it.

An affirmative analysis of past
and future and of temporal relations

To continue with temporal properties,
we must have some view of past and future. It seems sometimes to be
supposed by philosophers of the second tradition that all of our talk
of temporal properties
can be explained, if that is the right word, by seeing that it rests on
a
notion of 'becoming’, or 'passage’ or 'real transiency’. Here we appear
to have bundled up into one bag all of past, present and future.
One may wonder, of course, if these terms are intended to have to do
only
with talk of events being present.

That is, one may wonder if they are
merely other ways of referring to the primitive notion with which we
have
been concerned. If so, their intended use is entirely analogous to our
use
of the term 'existence’. The suspicion that more is intended, that
the terms in question arc thought to enlighten us about all of past,
present
and future, is sometimes reinforced by the fact that nothing at all is
said explicitly about past and future. No separate account whatever is
given of
past and future.

Be that as it may, and to come to something
clearer, it would be eccentric to claim that we have a single primitive
notion
of past, present and future. After all, we do distinguish these three
things.
It would also be unacceptable, surely, to call into being two more
primitive
notions, one for past and one for future. In so far as there is an
argument
for the assertion that a notion is primitive, it must consist partly in
the
fact that no tolerable analysis for it can be found. Given that we have
what
we seem to have. including a notion of events as present, this turns
out
to be untrue of past and future.

One possibility about past and future
that must come to mind is that they be analysed in terms of the notion
of
the present and the notions of precedence and subsequence. That is, we
make use of those two temporal relations, along with our concept of the
present, in order to explain past and future. What we consider,
obviously, is that to say an event is past is to say that it is before
present events, and to
say an event is future is to say that it is after present events.

Let us reserve judgement on that possibility
and turn our attention directly to temporal relations. Let us
reconsider their
analysis. Philosophers in the tradition of affirmation have usually
been
unsatisfied with the kind of analysis given of temporal relations in
the
tradition of caution. They take it to be mistaken, or anyway
inadequate, to
describe the relations of antecedence and subsequence by way of the
nature
of their terms, formal properties, and, in certain limited senses,
change
and direction.

Their move at this point is also predictable
enough. It is said that part or indeed all of what we mean in saying
the second-mentioned
visit of the comet is after the first, is that when the first visit is
present
the second is future, and that when the second is present the first is
past.
A similar line is followed with the relation of antecedence and that of
simultaneity.

Whatever else is to be said of this
analysis of temporal relations, it is clear that it has one
consequence.
If we adopt this analysis of temporal relations, we must give up the
possibility
noticed a moment ago with respect to the temporal properties of past
and
future. If we adopt both things, we shall again have a circularity. We
shall
be offering an analysis of past and future which depends in part on the
notions of antecedence and subsequence, but those latter notions will
themselves be
explained partly in terms of past and future.

There seems to be a way out of this
difficulty, although one cannot follow it with great confidence.

If, like the philosophers of the tradition of
affirmation, we are inclined to think the cautious analysis of temporal
relations is mistaken or inadequate, what is the root of our
inclination? It is, in a sentence, that what is said of temporal
relations makes them too
much akin to spatial relations. It would be mistaken, for obvious
reasons, to claim that the cautious analysis of temporal relations does
not make them
at all different from spatial relations. None the less, one feels there
is
not enough difference.

To put the question one way, what can
be added in order to get time into the analysis of temporal
relations? Let us first recall that items in temporal relations form a
series. This fact,
which is obvious enough, can be explained partly in terms of the formal
properties
of the relations. The four events with which we have been concerned are
members
of this series, which also includes events before the first-mentioned
visit
of the comet and after the third-mentioned visit. We are inclined to
regard
the series as in a way infinite. Be that as it may, and to come to the
essential
point, let us say of this series that some one event in it, and all
events
simultaneous with that event, are occurring or are present.
That is, they are such that the predicates which express our
primitive notion
are true of them. In short, then, we add to our account of temporal
relations
that they hold between events which form a series of which some
member-events
are present.

This additional characterization of
temporal relations is to be distinguished from something we have
considered
already: the characterization of them as holding between events. At
any rate, it can and is to be distinguished from anything that might be
meant
by the latter characterization within the cautious tradition. There,
presentness is restricted to a matter of simultaneity relations.
Whatever may there be
added to the analysis of temporal relations by specifying that they
hold
between events, it cannot be our current idea. All that talk of events
being
present is allowed to mean in the cautious tradition is something about
simultaneity
relations. Nothing would be gained by saying, in explanation of the
relations
of antecedence, simultaneity and subsequence, that they hold between
terms
which can enter into certain simultaneity relations.

One advantage of the suggestion that
temporal relations be tinder-stood partly as relations between items
which
form a series having a certain feature is the advantage that we can now
complete our analysis of temporal qualities without
circularity. We are enabled to say that past events are to be
understood as events before present events, without the embarrassment
that the notion of antecedence has been explained partly in terms of
past events. Similarly, we seem to be enabled to say that
future events are to be understood as events after present events,
without
the embarrassment that the notion of subsequence has been explained
partly
in terms of future events.

Summary

Let us sum up the accounts of temporal
relations and temporal properties. The account of temporal relations,
taken from the tradition of caution, is to the effect that
such a statement as this one, that the first-mentioned visit of the
comet is before the second,
conveys four things. The related terms are events, the relation has
certain
formal properties, implies the existence of a kind of change, and has
what
is called direction. The account of temporal properties taken
from
the tradition of caution is to the effect that such a statement as this
one,
that the second visit of the comet is now occurring, conveys that the
visit
is simultaneous with the utterance of the statement.

Temporal relations, given the
account suggested a moment ago, one within the tradition of
affirmation,
are to be understood in terms of the four features plus the further one
that
the terms of the relations form a series such that some of its
member-events are present. As for temporal properties, the
statement that the second
visit is now happening is taken to involve the use of an unanalysable
notion.
The statement that the third visit is to come is taken to mean that it
is
after present events, and the statement that the first visit has
occurred
already is taken to mean that it is before present events.

Speculations

To repeat something said in the beginning, I
do not suppose that a decision can be made between these doctrines on
the
basis of what has been said here. We have before us only hurried
propositions and inconclusive reflections. None the less, if a verdict
cannot be reached, we may at least speculate about one.

The cautious account of temporal properties
seems unpersuasive. Indeed, it seems open to something like a disproof.
Take
one example, the cautious analysis of the statement S3, that
the
third visit has not yet happened, or is future. The analysis must
surely
be mistaken. If I make the statement, what it means according to the
analysis
is that the third visit is after my utterance. The statement means, in
short,
that two events are in the temporal relation of subsequence. Temporal
relations,
as we know, do not change. Hence, when the third visit is
happening,
and when it is past, it will remain true of it that it is
after my
utterance of statement S3. But surely it cannot be that what
is
meant by S3 is something that will be true when the third
visit
is present or past.

We may notice at this point, if only
in passing, a related doctrine which is not open to this objection,
whatever else may be said of it. What it amounts to, in terms of our
example, is that
S3 conveys that the third visit of the comet is after a present
mental event of mine, one associated with my utterance. Similarly,
the
statement S1, that the second visit is now happening,
conveys
that the second visit is simultaneous with a present mental event
of mine, one associated with my utterance of S1. Such mental
events,
it is allowed, are present in a sense in which physical events
are
not present. What can be meant by this? It is fair to observe, I think,
that
no answer to this question is given. One is driven to suppose, in the
absence
of any instruction to the contrary, that when mental events are allowed
to
be present, what is being relied upon is a primitive notion.

There are several reasons why this
particular view does not command attention. To mention but one, the
admission
that mental events have a temporal property, conceived in a certain
way,
seems to lead inevitably to the admission that physical events also
have
this property. This is so, essentially, because of the connexion
between
mind and body. The proponents of the view have struggled manfully to
avoid
this further admission. In my opinion, they have not succeeded. Hence
the
view, although encumbered with propositions about simultaneity, comes
to
rest in the opposing tradition of affirmation.

Putting aside temporal properties,
the tradition of caution also seems open to question in its analysis of
temporal relations. The objection here must be less clear-cut.
Philosophical inquiries of the kind in which we have been engaged are
directed, importantly, by pre-philosophical
convictions, perceptions, guesses and so on. Analyses, in the end, are
assessed
against these things. No one will suppose, on reflection, that all such
convictions
and what-not are sacrosanct. Some of them can be rejected for the
reason
that they do conflict with the outcomes of philosophical inquiry.
Still,
to put the point far too quickly, it is difficult to escape the feeling
that
the cautious analysis of temporal relations is the loser in its real
enough
conflict with pre-philosophical commitments. One persists in the view
that
we do mean a good deal more in our temporal-relation utterances than is
allowed
by the analysis.

To turn to the tradition of affirmation, and
more particularly to the particular affirmative doctrine at which we
ourselves
arrived, it appears that it is not open to refutation, at
least in
any economical way. Also, it appears not to be involved in a losing
conflict
with pre-philosophical commitments. That is all very well, but it is
not
all that matters. The foundation of the doctrine, obviously, is the
claim
that there exists a certain notion that is beyond analysis. After the
claim
was first introduced, we did notice the possible reply that such claims
about
primitive notions are merely confessions of failure. There is, as we
saw,
the possibility of the brave rejoinder that the ‘failure’ may
be a happy one since ‘success’, or the production of an analysis,
would simply be a mistake. However, a brave rejoinder is not to be
confused
with coercive argument. There remains the possibility that an analysis,
something deserving of the name, can be given of statements
about
temporal properties.

NOTES

1. Throughout the essay, I speak of
the three principal temporal relations only. However, there are
obviously
more than three such relations. An event is also just before another,
long before another, two minutes after another,
a
century after another, and so on. I ignore these further
relations, which
raise no special problems for me.

2. More can be learned of these doctrines from
The Philosophy of Time, a Collection of Essays (London,
1968), edited by Richard M. Gale. The book contains essays by different
philosophers and also an extensive bibliography.

3. I am grateful to my colleagues,
Dr Malcolm Budd and Dr John Watling, for comments.

---------------------------------------------------------

This piece was
first published as 'Temporal Relations and Temporal
Properties' in the book Time and
Philosophy, edited by Paul
Ricoeur.